


goodbye (until tomorrow)

by sweetricebuns



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (to a certain degree!), Adam-Centric, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, Religious Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25937608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetricebuns/pseuds/sweetricebuns
Summary: These are Adam’s thoughts the moment he realizes death is coming for him.
Relationships: Adam & Keith (Voltron), Adam/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	goodbye (until tomorrow)

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: allusions to canon-typical violence, religious themes (not in-depth, adam himself is not religious in this fic)
> 
> unedited  
> title from the musical, _the last five years_

These are Adam’s thoughts the moment he realizes death is coming for him—

He thinks, _Mama_. Of her cobblestone grave, and how everything happened so quickly that he could barely even spare a thought to visiting her one last time.

Adam likes to think her death was peaceful. She passed in bed, only seven months after her husband had passed himself. They buried her in the lot next to his—a reunion of sorts. The funeral was a small affair, the air heavy with sadness and the sweet scent of peonies. Peonies were her favorite.

His mother was a strong woman. When Death took away her love, she took It by the hand and demanded It take her, too.

Adam wishes he could say he was strong.

(Eighty kilometers from where he’s up in the air, a jet is hit and pummels downwards.)

He thinks, _Home_. Of his family unit in the garrison, its two bedrooms, worn couch, and the red curtains. The pairs of shoes by the door that haven’t been worn in years, but sit there waiting for their owners to come back.

Adam never got around to submitting the transferral papers. No one had badgered him about it, so he figured he could keep it. Not many people were housing entire families in the Garrison anyway.

Keith’s bedroom remained untouched, for the most part. Adam likes to sit in it for a while every few weeks, look at the drawings and the glow-in-the-dark galaxies they bought for him, and remember. What Keith hadn’t thought to take with him when he left for his father’s shack, Adam kept and maintained. Every month, he would lay out new sheets, fluff the pillows, air out the cabinets, then vacuum every little nook and cranny. Keith's allergic rhinitis meant he couldn't stand too much dust.

He never stopped.

Adam hasn't told anyone that he does that.

(A galra ship gunning straight for Adam is intercepted by a garrison jet. Tim. No, Eva. Maybe Isabelle?

Two desperate calls into the comms, both go unanswered. Adam knows what this means: it’s just him up in the air. His squad members, his _friends_ , are gone.

He doesn’t waste his breath on the grief stuck in his throat. No one but him is there to hear it, anyway.)

He thinks, unbidden, of the nighttime prayer he would hear Matt utter when they were just cadets sharing a room. They come clearly to him, even when he’s never said them himself.

_Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my Soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my Soul to take._

He wonders if the god Matt prayed to was real. Matt never did anything he believed to be futile, so there must have been some merit in his faith.

If Matt’s god did exist, would it take his soul? Adam has to wonder if he has a soul to be taken in the first place. So much of it is scattered in places where he is not—among the stars, in the afterlife (or wherever his mother is), in the walls of their home—

Adam realizes that he hadn’t thought to keep some of his soul to himself. He can’t bring himself to regret it.

What awaits him on the other side? At one point, he had hoped it would be Takashi, broad-shouldered and healthy and forgiving. He knows now, though, that Takashi is alive. He is out there with Keith, the both of them living, fighting, alive.

Maybe that is what it comes down to. Adam’s life, for Takashi’s.

Fate is cruel, but he can’t bring himself to regret it.

(The wing of his jet takes a hit. Non-fatal, but Adam knows it’s only a matter of minutes, now.)

He thinks, _Takashi_. Of three syllables rolling off his tongue, the sweetest sound Adam thought he could make. 

It’s funny how so much is attached to a name. Memories and feelings, soul and heart. Exhilaration and peace. Security and heartbreak.

Adam knows he’s kidding himself. Takashi isn’t just a name. Takashi is flesh and bones and heat and light. He is warmth and hope and love, so much love that Adam is dizzy with it, even in his absence.

Takashi is visions of cold kisses on clifftops. He is the rush of wind in his ears as they ride across the desert. He is murmured _sorry_ s into the nape of Adam’s neck, boisterous laughter over a disastrous dinner. He is the hot touch of hands and the pleasure of a voice whispering sultry in his ears, he is grocery trips and visits to the cemetery, so much, so much—

Sam had told him to hold out hope. He said, _Voltron is coming_. He said, _Takashi is coming_. He said, _He still loves you_.

He said, _He was never angry with you_.

So Adam hoped. With every fibre of his being, every cell in his human body, he hoped, and he hoped, and he hoped, and even when the rest of the Garrison had lost faith, he hoped.

But it ends here.

He sends a quiet apology into the stars. Takashi will hear him.

(Frantic voices travel from the base to his comms. He hears the demand in Iverson’s voice, and beneath it, even through the static, anguish.)

He closes his eyes, leans back, and thinks, _Let this be it_.

(A _boom_. The whistle of a projectile.)

He thinks, _I hope their shoes still fit_.

(A few lightyears away, Shiro turns to Keith and says, _We’re going home_.)

**Author's Note:**

> oh, adam, my sweet heart :(
> 
> hope you're all safe and well!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/atIastic) | [tumblr](https://laurentism.tumblr.com/)


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